Beyond Band of Brothers by Major Dick Winters, Colonel Cole C. Kingseed Page A

At 0930 hours I also received orders from battalion headquarters to censor the enlisted men’s mail. I completed that chore and at 1000, I promptly entered the latrine. To my surprise Sobel was already there, making his own inspection. Without uttering a word, he exited the latrine, walked by me without acknowledging my presence. Behind him walked PrivateJoachim Melo, the latrine orderly, wet mop in hand. Melo was soaking wet, dirty, in need of a shave, hair uncombed. He looked (and I am sure felt) like a man who had just finished doing a dirty job. Sobel left without saying a word. I proceeded with my personal inspection and found that Melo had done a superb job. When I walked to company headquarters forty-five minutes later, 1st Sergeant Evans handed me a typed document that demanded my reply by endorsement whether I desired company punishment for failure to inspect the latrine at 0945 hours as instructed by the company commander or whether I requested a court-martial. I immediately proceeded to Sobel’s office to clear up the misunderstanding.
    â€œCaptain, my orders were to inspect the latrine at 1000 hours.”
    â€œI changed that time to 0945,” he replied.
    â€œI wasn’t informed of the change.”
    â€œI telephoned and I sent a runner.”
    This was too much for me—just another example of the chickenshit that characterized Sobel’s tenure as Easy Company’s commanding officer. Captain Sobel was now questioning my integrity and my sense of duty. I could not care less that my punishment was the denial of a forty-eight-hour pass until mid-December. Preferring to stay home with the Barneses where I studied my manuals, I very seldom left Aldbourne anyway. Principle was now at stake. Immediately following Strayer’s inspection, which Easy Company incidentally passed with flying colors, I returned to Sobel’s office and demanded trial by court-martial. Aldbourne being a small village, within minutes the story spread around the company. Within days Lieutenant Colonel Strayer directed his executive officer to conduct a preliminary investigation and in the interim, he transferred me to headquarters company and appointed me battalion mess officer until the court-martial was resolved. I was heartbroken by the transfer because I was no longer a troop leader, and the general practice was to assign mess duties to those officers who were not up to standard. On reflection, I understood Strayer had little alternative as it would have been detrimental to keep me in Easy Companywhen the company commander was court-martialing his second-in-command. The transfer in no way eased my pain of leaving the men with whom I had trained for over a year. This was the first time since I had been in the army that I wasn’t with field troops or in troop command.
    My abrupt transfer to battalion headquarters and headquarters company soon provoked widespread anger among the noncommissioned officers in the company. With Sobel still in command, the NCOs decided to push the issue. I had heard rumblings of a mutiny as soon as my court-martial was officially announced. Sergeants Mike Ranney and “Salty” Harris were the instigators. They called all the NCOs together in the company dayroom to discuss what they were going to do. Only a few of the noncommissioned officers were absent because Ranney and Harris did not want the word to reach Sobel until they had decided on what course of action to take. They invited me to the meeting. I went and told them not to do anything—any mutiny was in itself a court-martial offense. As I was in the middle of my plea asking them not to go through with this mutiny, Sobel walked in the door. Everyone just froze in place; there was not a sound. Ranney was the first to recover his voice and started off with something like, “Now how can we improve our athletic program?” This didn’t fool Sobel, I am sure, but without a word, he picked up a book and